Day 92, Friday, April 2nd, 2021
Grandma Visits
My mother-in-law came for a visit Friday night. She has been in Mexia taking care of her brother while her sister-in-law recovers in the rehab hospital from Covid. Everyone was so excited to see Judy and we decided to go bowling for a little family fun. I didn’t bowl because of my knee but Dominic and Curtis both got a couple of strikes. It was a lot of fun to see her, just wish we had more time.
Day 93, Saturday, April 3rd, 2021
Barn Swallows are Back
These little birds are very cute but such a nuisance! They return year after year to build nests and lay eggs. Then their offspring does the same thing the following year. After the babies have grown up, we usually knock down the nests. But they always rebuild. If they didn’t poop so much, we wouldn’t mind having them around!
Day 94, Sunday, April 4th, 2021
Musical Instrument Project
Dominic had a project for physics that required him to build a musical instrument from scratch. He decided to make maracas. This was a project in which he didn’t put a lot of effort, but the end result did meet the requirements. We asked him to resign from his job at Burger King and in talking with his psychiatrist, we decided to change his antidepressant. Hopefully this will help him find a little joy in his life again.
Day 95, Monday, April 5th, 2021
New Dog Bed
Charlie has developed arthritis in his shoulders and has been limping from time to time. I noticed that the living room dog bed have gotten quite flat and needed replaced. I tasked Dominic with finding a replacement and he did a great job. This BedSure Orthopedic dog bed was nearly 75% lower cost than comparable ones and it has an orthopedic mattress. We ordered the extra-large and honestly, a large would have been sufficient. It’s huge!
Day 96, Tuesday, April 6th, 2021
Core Strengthening
Tuesdays after Life Bridges means PT with Dr. Katie. She has Anna working on core strengthening. Here they are sitting/standing on repeat holding a kettle bell weight. I have already seen a difference in Anna‘s stamina and strength after just a month or so. She is not complaining as much about her back hurting either. We got the new mattress topper on her bed and the bed is much softer now. She is much happier sleeping.
Mental Health Care
Anna was telling Dr. Katie about some recent challenges. While grandma was here, we tried to go out to eat for the first time as a family. The restaurant was very crowded and loud, and we did not think ahead to plan a strategy with her. There were two upset babies which made Anna very agitated. Mom and I took her to the car where she proceeded to have a full meltdown. It was rough and I lost it when on the way home she threw her shoes and hit my mom. Not my best mom moment. There was yelling and screaming on the side of the road and we were making a big enough commotion that several neighbors stopped and asked if we needed help. (Thank you to the Angel on Winding View who brought us a Capri Sun and Fiber One bar… we bribed her to move seats and settle down and got her safely home.)
Anna shared that she’d had a rough few days (she had two incidents at Life Bridges and one on the bus in addition to the Saturday meltdown) so Dr. Katie provided some love and comfort. We spoke with Anna’s psychiatrist and he pointed out that she had a lot of change in a short period of time (Zach broke up with her, she’s now riding the bus, we did away with her 1-1 aide at LB and that person has been absent since they got back from spring break, she got her vaccine and is getting out into the real world, and we’ve been talking a lot about our upcoming trip to Key West… no wonder her anxiety is the other roof!). We talked with Dr. Hough about planning for success in Key West and doing some exposure therapy here in New Braunfels; short outings with rewards for tolerating crowds and crying babies. We also got some emergency meds for the plane in case she has a meltdown.
Day 97, Wednesday, April 7th, 2021
Worm Infestation
Oh my gosh, we have so many caterpillars and worms in our yard and trees right now. It’s a huge infestation of webworms, cankerworms, inchworms, and caterpillars. This was taken on my mom’s side of the house by her gate, ewwww! You can see multiple types of worms of differing sizes and lots of webbing. It’s great macro opportunity but honestly, I get skeeved out just walking in our back yard right now. They are handing down from the trees by the hundreds. So gross!
Cool Caterpillar
I did find one really large, really cool looking caterpillar. Are there any experts out there that can help me identify it? It was about 4-inches long and moved pretty quickly. It is really neat seeing all of the details on its body… the cilia, the spiny feet, the colors, and patterns.
Day 98, Thursday, April 8th, 2021
Glasses Adjustment
One of Anna’s incidents last week at Life Bridges led to her yanking her glasses off and throwing them. She hasn’t done that in over a year and a half! But a quick trip to Visionworks got them back in tip top shape. I really like that this location is still screening for fever at the front door. I’m so glad we all have our COVID vaccines now. Dominic said he read that 25% of the country is vaccinated now. We’re getting there!
Thanks for looking!
